


every little thing she does

by SafelyCapricious



Series: i put a spell on you [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Normally this is Fitz's job. Jemma is fabulous at potions, but fixing the sigils has never been her strong suit. </p><p>With her luck, the unwanted help is almost expected. </p><p>Modern-Magic AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every little thing she does

Jemma tugs on her lower lip and frowns down at the paint marks and checks the grimoire for the eighteenth time.

 This is really not her area of expertise. There’s a reason she and Fitz always work together. He’d insisted, though, that this was the easiest thing in the world to do and as long as she followed the grimoire there would be no problems. She’d believed him. She’d wanted to believe him – either way, it wasn’t like he was going to drag himself out of flu-ridden bed to help today.

 She wrinkles her nose and pokes at one of the chalk lines with a purple stained finger. Nothing happens. No sparks, no push back, no nothing. She lets out a huff of breath and rocks back on her heels. “Well…fuck,” she mutters, forgetting that she has the paint mixture still on her hands until she runs her hand through her hair and her head is instantly surrounded by sparks. She sighs again.

 Well, at least she knows it’s not a problem with her mixture. Not that she ever thought it was – she’s made that mixture often enough to do it in her sleep. Now if only she could actually draw sigils.

 Her train of thought is interrupted when she feels him, energy buzzing along her nerve endings, making her hair stand on end before he even enters the room. (She was beyond dismayed to discover he didn’t have this effect on anyone else.)

 She doesn’t turn to look. He’ll take anything as encouragement and she doesn’t want him there – she _doesn’t_.

 She has to grit her teeth to resist the urge to look up when his legs enter her peripheral vision. He nudges at the line of paint with the toe of his combat boot. Her head jerks up and she’s scowling at him before she can stop herself. His dragon tattoo twines down his arm and preens, expression eerily similar to the one on his face as he smirks down at her.

 “Ward,” she keeps her voice even, refusing to sound annoyed even though she knows she’s not fooling anyone – she’s scowling and her hand is flexing and releasing in time with her heart.

 He, on the other hand, pours all of the affection he claims to feel for her into what amounts to a verbal caress, “Jemma.”

 She looks away, pointedly, and huffs out, “Don’t call me that.”

 She knows he’s moved, she can feel the heat all along her side, but it’s still somehow a surprise that his face is inches from hers when she turns back, close enough that she can see the crimson lightning flash through his pupils. She jerks back and has to catch herself, barely managing to stop herself from falling into the useless marks on the floor.

 He huffs out a laugh and his dragon moves up his neck to peer at her from just above the collar of his shirt. His hands are clenched against his thighs.

He’s never touched her.

She’s not sure if it’s because her own personal barrier is enough not to allow it, or if it’s a choice. (She had made the mistake of asking once, even though the first rule of dealing with any of the red practitioners was that they lie. He’d leaned close enough that she was almost sure he’d taken the question as an invitation, and purred, “When I touch you for the first time, it will be because you begged me to.”)

 He looks away from her and focuses on the marks she’s left on the wood, tilting his head this way and that before asking, “What is this supposed to be?”

 She straightens, insulted, but before she can be as rude as she wants to be back, he makes a soft hum in the back of his throat and then dips his fingers into the paint – into _her_ paint – and smooths the outermost line before adding one small curve to the symbol in the northeastern quadrant.

She feels when the spell comes online – millions of drops of water splashing all around her and warm velvet along her nerve endings. She lets herself luxuriate in it for only a moment before turning surprised eyes to Ward. “How did you _do_ that?” her voice is weak, the full implications only now hitting her. That shouldn’t have been possible.

He doesn’t answer, instead he raises the hand that still has her paint clinging to it to his face, rubbing it between his fingers for a moment before touching it to his tongue.

She feels that all the way down her spine and she lets out an indigent squawk once she sure that she won’t moan if she opens her mouth.

He grins at her, wolfish, and wipes the rest of the paint off on his jeans before saying, “You leave too much of yourself open, it works for your potions because you _need_ to pour yourself into those – but it’s shit for wards like these, especially protective ones. And it’s distressingly easy to slip behind your lines when you’re that open – this ward won’t fight back for you the same way your potion will.” He tilts his head and softens his voice, his dragon tattoo looks like it’s scolding her as he says, “You shouldn’t do this sort of thing by yourself. Where _is_ your lesser half?”

She wants to yell, to insult him back – but she’s worried. Instead she instantly shifts her stance and locks down all of her barriers, closing her eyes to see if – if he was even being honest – he’s left any sorts of traps behind her lines.

He makes a pained grunt as soon as she locks up, but she can’t focus on that right now, instead she shifts through everything. It only takes a few seconds for her to find the little bundle of…something he left for her.

She’s holding it in her hand when she opens her eyes. It appears as a small ball, hovering five inches over her hand, glowing red. He’s watching her warily, one-hand rubbing at his chest. She can’t see where his dragon has gone.

 Jemma tilts her head and wrinkles her nose, turning her confused gaze to him. “What is it?”

 He shifts his weight, coming closer, and then his hands are right below hers. She can feel the heat from his palms more than she can feel the weight of the magic in her hands. “May I?” his voice is soft, coaxing.

 She’s not sure what he’s asking for a moment, but when she realizes she hesitates. She has to take another moment to make sure her walls are as solid as she thinks they are, to make sure the protection she’s enacted on the house is still holding before she gives a brisk nod.

 His hands curve around hers. His hands feel warm, but not overly warm – not as warm as she was expecting given how she can always feel the heat of him. There is no lightning, her hair doesn’t stand on end like it does when he first enters a room. She feels almost disappointed. And then he leans forward and blows, lightly, into the magic in their hands and all of her nerve endings spark.

 The ball twists and curves before bursting and raining down over their hands. The majority of it slides off of her hands and onto his – she watches his tattoo reform on his wrist.

 There’s still a small puddle of red magic in her hands and he’s watching her, question obvious in his gaze.

 She hesitates again before pointing out, “I’m not red.”

 He shrugs and his dragon peels itself off of his wrist and licks at her finger tips. She blinks at it, she’s never seen it do that before. He doesn’t seem to notice, gaze fixed firmly on her face. “It doesn’t matter. Do you want it?”

 She narrows her eyes at him and purses her lips. “What’s the catch?” She clicks her tongue before he can respond – before he can lie to her – and she takes advantage of the mistake he made earlier, calling to the potion he put on his tongue. “Truth only, Grant Douglas Ward.”

 His eyes go dark and he smirks, saying honestly, “I was going to tell you the truth,” he shrugs, “But I suppose this way you’ll actually believe me.” He runs his tongue over his lips, and she can see the ward her paint made, pulsing with her heart. “You’ll have to feed her your energy. Not much, though the amount will get slightly bigger as she grows. The first few days you’ll be very, very tired. But after that she’ll always be there, a store to call on – protection to keep you safe when –“ he tsks and shakes his head before continuing, “She’ll act as protection when you fail to barrier yourself correctly. If you pull all of her you’ll have to spend a long time to build her back up. That’s the catch.”

 She blinks, heart uneven, and flicks her finger to release the spell on his tongue. His fingers rub against the back of her wrist and she has to fight a shudder.

 His voice is soft, coaxing, when he says, “Let her in.”

 She opens up her barriers, just a little, and watches the red magic dart through, settling into the palm of her hand. It stings, hot, for a moment before it settles down to a soothing warmth. She blinks away tears and can see the lines settle.

 There is a small calico kitten tattoo, barely an inch wide, curled up on the palm of her hand.

 It stretches, and she can feel a phantom sensation of the tiny claws digging in before they release and the kitten yawns and settles back down.

 Ward leans down and kisses her other palm.

 She stares at him, gapes really.

 He straightens back up and grins, dropping her hands abruptly. She hadn’t realized he was holding hers up until he isn’t, and she can hear the kitten screech in irritation before going scrambling up her arm to curl up over her collarbone.

 “Later, Jemma.” He salutes her – she can’t decide if it’s mocking or not – before rising smoothly to his feet and striding away.

 She stays there, feeling a little shell shocked, for the next ten minutes, before muttering a final, “Well…fuck,” and standing up. She’s going to have to face Fitz at some point about the myriad of mistakes she’s made today, it might as well be now.

 (Despite everything though, despite the knowledge that she didn’t ask the right questions when she had the power to only get truth – despite the fact that she knows down to her bones that she’s been tricked and it’s all her fault, she cannot regret her new tattoo.)

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my writing tumblr [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/), where I perpetually accept prompts. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think. I had a lot of time making this universe and coming up with the rules (there are so many rules floating around in my head!) so I hope you enjoy!


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